Maquipucuna Biological Preserve

Got to see my first tarantula in the wild!  With something like 10% of Ecuador's biodiversity on only 6000 hectares, Maquipucuna is a pretty damn awesome place.  2 hours north of Quito, the drive there is incredible- passing through cloud forests, you have green covered peaks rising on both sides, with only the very occasional patch of subsistence agriculture breaking the mass of epiphyte covered trees.  Being a cloud forest, the tops of the forested peaks are almost always hidden  by clouds, and with constant moisture in the atmosphere.  Most of hte way there, we stopped at an old ranger station to look at the plant life of an upper montane forest, the top part of the cloud forest.  It seemed like every exposed branch was covered in epiphytes, either mosses, lichens, orchids, or larger plants, hanging or growing up from the tree limbs.  The orchids are definitely not the typical houseplant most people thing of- some look similar, but many are much smaller, green, and mostly unflowerlike plants, while others are large, thick pieces of color.

orchid

orchid 2

epiphyte

the lodge

Eventually we turned off the road, and took the bus up a long dirt road until we reached the bridge over a mountain river that marked the entrance to the lodge.  The lodge itself was a gorgeous building made mostly of bamboo (which is one of the fast growing species in the cloud forest), and covered by a thatched roof.  Two stories, it has kitchen, dining, bathroom below, and common area and lodging above.  Because of how many of us there were, I slept with Prof Esteban and several of the other guys in a cabin of similar architecture further up the hill.  After a hearty lunch, we broke into groups and went with guides for a hike.  My group focused on the soil of the area.  Most of the area around the lodge, which is only ~20 years old, was once sugar cane farmland, and that's apparent in the soil.  Near the lodge, where the soil has been used the longest, it goes almost from leaf litter to clay beneath, with little topsoil.  Further up the slope, near the undisturbed primary forest, the topsoil is thicker, full of root mass and hunks of organic matter.  Because the lodge is in a lower montane forest, the amount of epiphytes on the trees is not quite as extensive, though they are definitely still present, especially in the primary forest.  Stretched across the property, and intersected by several trails, is an old Incan road.  A trail cut 3 or 4 feet into the soil by centuries of use, it was used to connect the coast in Esmeraldas province with the Andes themselves.  The next morning, the rain made a birdwatching session fairly unsuccessful- untill we returned to the lodge, and found a toucan calmly sitting on a branch outside.

no fruit loops with this fellow

One of the other great finds from right by the lodge was a line of leaf cutter ants, busily at work, bringing pieces of leaves back to their colony to grow fungus on the leaves for food.  The whole time we were at Maquipucuna, the position of the line never changed, and it only broke during downpours as the ants were forced to abandon their work.  In the line, medium ants carried the leaves, small ones, I assume the cutters, rode atop their price, and big warriors with bulking heads and mandibles patrolled the line, to and from the colony, up by my cabin.  Unfortunately, they were difficult to photograph.  

Having seen the area around the lodge, a trek through the undisturbed secondary forest seemed necessary.  The forest's trees became recoated in the epiphytes that had become less plentiful, and ferns  and palms appeared in places.  Behind a ridgeline from the lodge, the old growth forest was goregous, with green every where- with the exception of the trail, there was hardly any exposed soil.  The amount of vegetation was insane.  Part way through the hike, we stopped and swam in a mountain river- the water was gushing over rocks and rather cold, but absolutely worth it.  On the trek back to the lodge, we worked our way up through an old flood path, a narrow gully several people high.  The bottom was mud (rubber boots were highly appreciated!), and the sides were coated in mosses and small plants, with the larger trees hanging overhead.  It is an amazing place!

crack the fruit open, rub the berries, and you've got facepaint!

fearsome warrior

cloud forest

more forest